Hoop dreams blocked
BY BRIAN WEIDMAN
SVN REPORTER
bweidman@svnmail.com
While visiting friends and family in Dixon during the holidays, Greg Clausen found time to play some pickup basketball at the YMCA.
Opponents and teammates sharing the court with the rangy, 6-foot-11 Clausen probably were wondering why he wasn't competing against players more comparable to his skill level. Until last spring, he was trying to do just that.
The 2001 Marquette University graduate spent the past six years traveling the world, trying to carve out his niche in professional basketball. He started in 2001, in The Hague, Netherlands, and ended with the Albuquerque (N.M.) Thunderbirds of the NBA Developmental League.
Clausen played with teams in Belgium, New Zealand, Australia, Mexico (twice), China and Ecuador. He also played for 11 teams in the United States, with names such as the Riverdragons (Columbus, Ga.), Rim Rockers (Fort Worth, Texas) and Stampede (Boise, Idaho).
"It's great to sit back and visualize and think that I've been living in 10 different countries playing a game," Clausen said. "It was so much fun and I've met so many people, made so many contacts - it was a great opportunity."
Lloyd Johnson, Clausen's coach at Dixon High School, has followed his former player's progress closely.
He smiled as he remembered Clausen as a 6-2 seventh grader with size-14 feet, the object of ridicule among classmates.
"One day, I saw him crying by his locker and I asked him what was the matter," Johnson said. "He said all the kids were making fun of him and he was going to quit basketball. I told him there were two things he could do: He could quit or he could take adversity and work through it."
Johnson got Clausen some weights to increase his strength and a jump rope to improve his agility. He went from a gangly, 6-4 eighth grader to a mobile, 6-10 sophomore.
"I remember the scouts from Marquette came down, and what impressed them was the fact he could run as a big man and he could catch the ball," Johnson said. "We started getting calls from schools like Notre Dame and Michigan State. I knew then he had the potential for something big."
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The seeds for Clausen's hoops dream were further sewn at Marquette, where he was a career reserve and learned he had to expand his game. His coaches, Mike Deane and Tom Crean, were supportive but realistic about the raw talent on their hands.
Each instructed Clausen to attempt shots from no further away that five feet.
"I think Mike Deane made a comment my freshman year: 'I don't know whether Greg's going to break the backboard first with a free throw or a dunk,' " Clausen said. "He made that comment to the paper and I was like, 'Oh, I've got a long ways to go.'"
Before Clausen's senior season, at the team's Midnight Madness exhibition, he attempted a two-handed dunk he hoped would be a crowd pleaser. He slammed the ball through the hoop, slipped off the rim and landed squarely on his tailbone.
He played in pain the rest of the season.
"That was at midnight, and we had practice at 12 o'clock the next day," Clausen said. "You can't miss the first day of practice. I got through it, but that was kind of a precursor of things to come."
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A self-described "tweener" - between a power forward and a center - Clausen began his professional career in the Netherlands and in Belgium. There he developed a jump shot reliable up to 15 feet, as big men playing in the European leagues need to have that as part of their games.
Defensively, Clausen noted he had short arms for a player his size. His wingspan equaled his height, whereas other 6-11 players ideally had wingspans eight inches longer.
"I couldn't block the shots that other tall guys did in the lane," Clausen said. "I could do it on the weak side, but straight up, I couldn't block a lot of the shots. I was more or less a big presence in the middle."
Clausen's skills kept him on the game's fringes and constantly on the move. In 2003, he played for teams in North Dakota, Texas, New Zealand and Australia. It was more of the same the next three years, and it was anything but glamorous.
"When you're on a snowy nine-hour bus ride from Rockford to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, you play a game and then you bus all the way back to Rockford right away, you wonder if it's all worth it," Clausen said.
The carrot out there was a shot at the NBA. Clausen had workouts for the Milwaukee Bucks and Memphis Grizzlies, but didn't make it to the show.
"That was a taste of the honey, but I wanted the whole beehive," Clausen said. "You just can't get that sometimes."
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Hampering Clausen's efforts was a balky back from his days at Marquette. He has degenerative disc disease, and required three cortisone injections a year each of the last three years he competed. He also popped anti-inflammatory medicine on a regular basis.
Last April, he decided enough was enough.
"If I just live a regular life, I'll be fine," Clausen said. "But if I'm constantly on the hardwood for four hours a day, I'll be back right to where I was."
Clausen's new career path has him back in the gym in a different capacity. While in Florida this past summer, he hooked up with high school teammate Justin Young, who is the general manager of a Gold's Gym and also is a personal trainer.
A light came on in Clausen's head.
"Going to work at a gym every single day seemed so awesome to me," Clausen said. "I was like, 'You get paid for this? Sweet, I want to do this.' "
He's in the process of becoming a certified personal trainer, and hopes to be seeing clients by the end of January.
"I was as close as you get - I was knocking on the NBA's front door," Clausen said. "But there comes a time and a point in a person's life when you see reality. There's another echelon of players' status. You've got to be the best of the best to get there. I was pretty good, but I wasn't the best of the best."
